The Centers for Disease Control estimates that one in six Americans gets food poisoning every year. But Snarski said it's very difficult to determine if an illness is food-borne or rooted in something else.

"The toxins that cause food-borne illnesses usually take several hours or several days to incubate," she said. "It usually is not the last meal, it could be the meal earlier that day, yesterday or several days before."

That's why it's hard for state investigators to prove if a business is the source of food poisoning. And what surprises most people is that it's not even health officials who investigate restaurant food complaints. It's the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

The DBPR licenses and regulates more than 48,000 food establishments. Last year, more than 7,000 complaints were investigated.